Last night I had to resort to the
Caledonian-MacBrayne brochure to refresh my memory
about some of the ferry routes to the Outer
Hebrides in Scotland, as I couldn't find the
answer fast enough on the CalMac website.

And I was sent back to the pre-net days of travel
planning. Remember paying a fortune & waiting
weeks for delivery of your new Cook's Continental
Timetable so you could plan rail & ferry travel in
Europe? Mailing off flimsy-paper requests for
hotel reservations with a return postage coupon
the recipient could use to return confirmation to
you? Scouring travel guides for hotel addresses?

The advent of fax machines changed the way I
organized my travel planning, but the net caused a
major revolution! And email....well, here we are
today, a community of travelers sharing our love
of travel with others whose paths would never have
crossed ours in the flimsy-paper-snail-mail days!